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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 28th May 2005 at 3:02 AM Last edited by fwiffo : 14th Jun 2005 at 5:53 PM.
Default Cloning Grim, Hula, Shrink, Polli Tech, etc.
Edit: Some info in this post is incorrect or incomplete. Please read the rest of the thread.

This is a bit long, but please bear with me...

OK, we all know there's NPCs you can interact with and even move into your household (mail lady, pizza guy, mascots, streakers, burglars, etc., etc.), and there's some that you can't without a cheat or hack (the social workers, repo men, drivers, social bunnies, the shrink, Grim Reaper, Hula Zombie, Pollination Technician and the remote control car). The first four of those groups aren't too special; you can't interact with them in-game, but they're easily cloned with SimPE or what-have-you. If they get killed off or deleted somehow, the game generates new ones, and Veronaville and Strangetown have different ones than Pleasantville or a custom town. They only differ from the rest of the NPCs from a gameplay point of view. The remaining 5 are super-special, and don't have entries in the neighborhood files at all.

What I'd like to do is create playable clones (that you could make part of your family, edit in Bodyshop, upload to the Sims 2 exchange, etc.) of all the NPCs that you couldn't normally move in to your household. So there'd be a Hula Zombie that's got the same genes, clothes, appearance, personality, etc. of the NPC Hula Zombie (if she even has all those things). Same for Grimmy, the Shrink, etc. Obviously, that's trivial for the social workers, drivers, repo men and even the social bunnies. It gets less trivial for the other five.

I'd heard that the information for those NPCs is stored on objects.package, and I looked with SimPE, and sure enough, there's three facial structure entries in there. I slapped them on a few sims, and got myself a perfect Shrink, Hula Zombie and Pollination Technician. The remaining two (Grim and RC Car) don't seem to have facial structure entries in objects.package, but they also don't have any heads in-game!

I've bred a few kids with the Reaper in the past using the Tombstone of L & D, and I tried it out with Hula Zombie and the RC Car a little today, and I'm convinced that when you make Reaper or RC Car to make babies it uses Hula's facial structure information. If you look at the male version of the Hula facial structure, it bears a family type resemblance to Grim's kids. Does anyone have any information to dispute this?

Also, are the other genetic characteristics of these NPCs stored somewhere? I mean, I presume that Pollination Technician is homozygous for alien skin and eyes, but is the same true for his hair (black?) If the shrink carries a recessive gene for red hair, I'd like my clone to have that too. What about their personality points? (Their kids get a personality from somewhere.) I've heard that Grim has no aspiration and that the Shrink has a knowledge aspiration - where would that information come from?

Lastly, when you befriend and move in an NPC like the mail lady, mascot, etc., they retain some of their NPC characteristics. If you use a dresser, they have an extra "special" option under "change into", which changes them into their NPC clothes even if you've given them different everyday clothes. Some behaviors are retained too - the mascot will do the school cheer randomly (the action doesn't even show up in his cue when he does it), and streakers will run around without clothes. How does that work? Looking at them in SimPE, they still have the NPC type set. Is that all there is to it? Do they have a special clothing entry for their NPC uniforms that gives them the extra option? I'd like my clones to have that option if possible. And if my Hula Zombie could start doing a hula dance when she's bored, that would be extra awesome, though I'm guessing that's a total fantasy.

Oh, and one final thing - is there a good way to knock off my Grim's head to keep it from poking out of the hood (making it as much as possible like the real grim)? I'd like to avoid any non-maxis content, if possible, to keep my clones as authentic to the originals as possible.
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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#2 Old 29th May 2005 at 5:55 PM
Doing some more digging, using the excellent "group filter", I was able to find some more good stuff. I found "3D ID Referencing Files" which describe the clothes for these NPCs, as well as "Age Data" and "Property Sets" which give things like their hair, eye and skin color. I presume these only describe appearance not what genes they would pass on (which would be in SimDNA entries, which don't appear to exist).

Since I'm still new to SimPE, to see if I knew what the heck I'm doing and not just screwing around, I tried making my own custom Pollination Technician. Like L-J in his original better-looking polination technician thread, I was able to override the facial structure information (netting some attractive alien babies), but not the other genetic information (skin, hair and eye color). He seems to arbitrarily pass on the default alien skin and eyes and black hair without pulling them from a list of genetics anywhere. Perhaps someone's found a solution for this (other than overriding the default alien skin and eyes, which would modify all aliens in the game, not just the new ones) that I wasn't able to come up with in my searching. Creating a "Catalog Description" entry in the custom Polli Tech might let you change his name though (but I haven't tried it yet).

Also, I was able to find these tidbits in Grim's clothing file:
Quote:
Category=Everyday; Age=Adult; Name=auhairnull_null (Property Set: 0xEBCF3E27 - 0x00000000 - 0x2C17B74A - 0xCCD4CF57)
Category=Everyday; Age=Teen, Adult, Elder; Name=aufacenull_null (Property Set: 0xEBCF3E27 - 0x00000000 - 0x2C17B74A - 0xACD4CF56)

This is clearly what gives Grim no head, but putting it in a prototype sim package (e.g. for use in the sim bin or bodyshop), crashes bodyshop and the game. I've tried both copying these lines (one at a time) and copying the whole "3D ID Referencing File" entry, and gotten the same results.

Is it possible that when you breed a sim with Grim or some other sim that is missing facial information or genetic information, that the result is just your sim blended with "zero", i.e. some neutral, default face and default genetics?
Test Subject
#3 Old 29th May 2005 at 6:04 PM
wow, Fwiffo. I know that when you breed Grim with someone else, you usually get black hair. We can (I hope) safely presume that black hair is one of Grim's 'default' traits. I would think that he would be homozygous (two of the same alleles for a trait) for black hair, seeing as I have so far not gotten any other hair color from a baby of Grim's, no matter which hair color the other parent has. I have also noticed that the children have a tendency to have the 3rd skin color choice, (The darker but not black skin) even though I tend to use the lighter skin colors. Possibly, though, he would have black skin and all the Sims who breed with them mix the colors, creating that color. The babies also often have gray eyes, a color that I NEVER use, so I assume that his default eye color is gray. I hope that I have helped.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#4 Old 29th May 2005 at 9:40 PM
I haven't gotten any color for hair other than black from ANY of the five special NPCs when breeding them (or getting alien babies the normal way in the case of Pollination Technician.) I agree with you about his skin color - I have gotten the second lightest from him in two instances (one with an alien mom, the other mom had the lightest skin), but that would work with what we know about skin genetics (you can get anything between the two alleles you have, inclusive, for the standard shades). Hula happens to have the second darkest skin color, but she has green eyes (IIRC), so if I'm right about her facial structure being passed to Grim's kids, I might not be right about the other genetics.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#5 Old 3rd Jun 2005 at 1:44 AM
OK, I found out about the cheat code simDNA which you can use in-game to find out what it thinks the genetics are for sims. You need "boolprop testingcheatsenabled true" in your userStartup.cheat file to use this cheat. Here's what I found out about Grim, Hula, the Therapist and the RC Car (I wasn't able to get this to work for Pollination Technician because I couldn't get him on to the lot). In all four cases, each appears to be homozygous for hair and eye color, and all four skin color entries are identical (both copies of the "expressed" skintone, which they will pass on to their kids, and the "range" which they would have inherited from their parents if they had them). For the NPCs you can actually see, the DNA is consistent with their appearance.

Grim Reaper:
---------------------------
Eyes: Light blue
Hair: Black
Skin: S2 (second lightest)
Dominant facial regions: mouth, cheekbones, eyes, ears

*NPC - Remote Control Car:
---------------------------
Eyes: Light blue
Hair: Black
Skin: S2 (second lightest)
Dominant facial regions: brow, mouth, cheekbones, ears

Therapist Therapist:
---------------------------
Eyes: Dark blue
Hair: Black
Skin: S1 (lightest)
Dominant facial regions: brow, cheek, cheekbones, eyes, ears

Hula Zombie:
---------------------------
Eyes: Green
Hair: Black
Skin: S3 (second darkest)
Dominant facial regions: cheek, cheekbones, jaw

Now, here's a surprise. The when I checked grim, I summoned him by using Rodney's death creator to electrocute a "subject". Then when I went to do Hula, I put him in platinum and did death by old age. I decided to double-check Grim, and everything was the same EXCEPT:
Dominant facial regions: brow, cheek, jaw

I can't explain that. I really doubt that their are two different Grim reapers, one with a lei, and one without. That's not consistent with all the other information.

Also, these are inconsistent with your breeding results, miketaba. I haven't gotten a gray eyed baby out of Grim. They've either had brown, dark blue, or light blue eyes, which in all cases were *possibly* inhereted from the "mother", though I haven't confirmed each case. I've also only gotten S2 skin color (the second lightest) and never S3 (second darkest).

So, either you and I have different Grims, or Grim's DNA is actually arbitrary (pulled from nowhere), and can vary in some aspects. Can you check your Grim with the simDNA cheat? I have University installed; if you don't, that could possibly explain the difference.
Test Subject
#6 Old 3rd Jun 2005 at 1:54 AM
one time i used the insimonater to make a baby and i used the therispst and it came out with some ugly twins they were so ugly but the grim reper kids always look good i never tried the car and what hula
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#7 Old 3rd Jun 2005 at 2:04 AM
Yep, the therapist does make ugly kids. Have you ever actually looked at his face? It's cartoonish. Blend that with a normal face, and all you can get is ugly. The Hula Zombies appear when your sim dies of old age in platinum. There's a whole special grim sequence, and you get a big gold tombstone.
Test Subject
#8 Old 3rd Jun 2005 at 5:48 PM
oh lol ill have to try that
Forum Resident
#9 Old 3rd Jun 2005 at 6:05 PM
The only reaper child I have so far looks completely diferent from her mother, so I assume her genetics are pretty accurate. Hair: black (mother blond), Eyes: darker blue (mother green), Skintone: lightest (mother darkest).
Forum Resident
#10 Old 3rd Jun 2005 at 6:08 PM
so the reapers do not only have different suits, but also different DNAs??
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#11 Old 3rd Jun 2005 at 9:48 PM
@Ovenhole: Are you sure the kid doesn't have light blue eyes? Dark blue is dominant, so if the kid got them from the mother, the mother's eyes can't be naturally green (unless it's custom content or her appearance has been modified), because green is recessive. If they ARE dark blue, and the mother definately doesn't have any genes for dark blue eyes, then your Grim must be different from mine! Can you try that simDNA cheat to see the genetics of the mother, child and grim in your game?

@Fat D: There is only one Grim Reaper, but his genes might not always be the same. The two different circumstances I had showed similar, but not identical DNA (everything was the same, except the part that said which facial features were dominant).

Of course, the DNA isn't too interesting if we can't find out what facial structure is passed on to Grim's kids, when he doesn't appear to have any. If his kids are supposed to be so handsome, it would be nice to know what he would look like!
Inventor
#12 Old 3rd Jun 2005 at 10:38 PM
Fwiffo, this is nice research.
Test Subject
#13 Old 9th Jun 2005 at 3:49 PM
What are the ways you can get a reaper child? it is not my computer and the owner is weird about downloading hacks. is there a way without downloading programs?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#14 Old 9th Jun 2005 at 6:57 PM
Yes, you can do it with the tombstone of life and death. To get that:
1. Hit Shift-Ctrl-C to bring up the cheat console. Type in "boolprop testingcheatsenabled true" and hit enter.
2. Shift-click on your sim and choose "Spawn -> Tombstone of L&D." A tombstone should appear near your sim.
3. Bring up the cheat console again and type in "boolprop testingcheatsenabled false" to turn the debug cheats back off.

Click on the tombstone to get various options. One is "Get pregnant by..." You may have to click "More..." a few times to find it. You'll be able to choose from any sim present on the lot, including special sims like the Grim Reaper.
Lab Assistant
#15 Old 11th Jun 2005 at 2:39 PM
You can get the Pollination tech onto your lot by using Insimenator and pausing the game first. He will vanish as soon as you unpause the game. Depending on how the genetic cheat works, if it works during game pause, you could get that info.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#16 Old 11th Jun 2005 at 6:06 PM
Any time I tried teleporting him onto the lot, he produced and error and I wasn't able to use the simDNA cheat. I found what appears to be his DNA entry in the Neighborhood file by looking at the "Unknown" entry that shows as the father of all the alien babies. He's homozygous for alien eyes and skin and black hair (none of which is a surprise). His dominant facial features entry is "nose, brow, cheek, eyes,".

I've actually tried changing some of it, but it always crashes during birth if I try it.
Test Subject
#17 Old 11th Jun 2005 at 6:12 PM
Eek. I'll be checking back to this post. I've always wanted to have my own Polination Tech, and Birth/Colony Drone to play with.
Test Subject
#18 Old 13th Jun 2005 at 5:11 PM
Thanks!
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#19 Old 14th Jun 2005 at 4:42 PM
Making your own Polli Tech, Therapist or Hula isn't too hard, and there are a couple of pre-made ones floating around. My understanding now is that the ones in objects.package are templates, similar to your "saved sims" templates you can create in body shop. Creating a sim from such a template (either by the game when it needs one, or from CAS), has a predictable gentic result - homozygous for hair, eye and skin color. The exception is the "dominant facial features" portion, which is random each time, with certain features weighted based on gender (e.g. males might be more likely to have a dominant brow, while females would be more likely to have a dominant mouth.)

So, each time one of these special NPCs is created, that portion of their DNA might be different. The question is now, are these NPCs created and destoryed whenever they're needed? Are they already in the template neighborhoods when you install the game? Are they created when you first enter the neighborhood, and remain thereafter?

For the remote control car and grim, it may be that they don't have pre-defiend skin, hair or eye color at all, and it just uses an arbitrary set of genetics. According to MaxiodTom, there is a default DNA that the game falls back on if there is none present when it's needed.

Here are some rough instructions (it's good to be familiar with SimPE) for how to make your own Pollination Technician, Hula Zombie or Therapist Therapist. Making a correct Grim Reaper is harder, because I don't know of a workable way to make the head invisible, and the RC car is similarly troublesome, and probably less interesting for most people. Also, since they don't have facial structure entries, it seems to use some sort of "default", and I don't know if that's stored anywyere.

I'm at work, so this is from memory.

1. There is a file in your Sims 2 "Program Files" directory hierarchy (can't recall exactly where, off-hand) called "objects.package". Make a copy of this file to work off of so you don't inadvertantly modify the original if you make a goof. Modifying this file would be bad.

2. Open your copy of objects.package in SimPE (double-clicking it should do the trick).

3. In the upper-right box that lists the types of included files, select "Facial Structure". There should be three facial structure entries that show up to the right. The Group ID tells you who they belong to. 0x7FEB2FC7 is Hula. 0x7F45284D is Polli Tech. 0x7F32FC43 is the therapist.

4. Right click on the one you want and choose "extract". Save it somewhere you can find it, and give it a filename that you'll be able to understand. You might as well get all three while you're at it, in case you want the others later. I actually like to use Hula as a "starting point" for a lot of my "normal" sims because she's got a nice face that looks good in both genders and all color combinations.

5. You'll now need to create a sim template to put the facial structure into. This is easier to do in CAS than bodyshop, because you'll need to unlock some hidden things with boolprop. I assume you know how to do that. You can give the sim whatever name, personality, aspiration, etc. you want - these will be discarded later on. You may as well create all three in one family if you think you might ever want them all; it will save time to do it now. You don't have to move them into a lot or anything, just let them sit in your family bin.

For Pollination Technician, create an adult male sim with alien skin and eyes and black hair. The hairstyle should be bald, and his everyday outfit is the mad scientist outfit.

For the Therapist, you want an adult male with the lightest skin, dark blue eyes and black hair. The hairstyle is one of the hidden ones you unlock with boolprop - I'm sure you'll be able to spot it. His everyday outfit is the labcoat with the smiley face (again, unlocked with boolprop).

Hula is an adult female with the second darkest skin, green eyes and black hair. Her hairstyle is the one that looks like the female maid hairstyle without the maid hat. Her outfit is the green grass hula skirt.

These NPCs also have outfits specified for undies, formal, swimwear, etc. but unless you're OCD or something, you probably don't care because you never normally see the NPCs in those outfits. If you do care, you can find them listed in the "3D referencing file" in objects.package that correspond to the same Group IDs listed above. Don't worry about what face you give them - it's going to get overwritten.

6. Quit the game and load up SimPE. Go to "Plugins -> Neighborhood Browser" and select the neighborhood you used in step 5. It will take a second to load everything, then go to "Plugins -> Sim Surgery".

7. Find the sim(s) you made in the list on the left. Highlight the sim, then click "use" under the "patient" section, then click "export". Give it a name you'll be able to recognize later. It should get saved in your "SavedSims" folder. Repeat this process (highlight sim, click "use", click "export") for each sim you made, then close Sim Surgery.

8. Go to "File -> Open". Browse to your SavedSims folder and open the sim you exported.

9. Find the facial structure entry (there should be exactly one). Right click on that and choose "replace". Browse to the facial structures you saved in step 4 and open the appropriate one.

10. Save the file. Repeat steps 8-10 for each one you're doing. When you're done, you can quit SimPE - you won't need it again if everything went as planned.

11. Open up BodyShop. Your new templates should appear in the list of saved sims. Their previews might show their old faces. If that's the case, clone them (the correct face should show at this point if you did everything correctly) and resave them, then delete the originals (there may be some way to clear BodyShop's cache that is quicker - I don't know off-hand).

You can now use these templates when creating new sims in CAS. It appears that none of these NPCs have personalites, skills or aspirations, so you can fill those in with whatever you like. Actually, each of these NPCs does have an entry in the neighborhood, but they're labeled "Unknown". You can find these most easily by looking at the "relations" of children you've made from them. If you actually examine them, you'll see they're blank. The one exception is the Therapist which seems to have "Knowledge" for his aspiration at least sometimes. I don't think he has any personality or skills though.
Lab Assistant
#20 Old 14th Jun 2005 at 5:41 PM
Thanks, Will try this.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#21 Old 20th Jun 2005 at 1:02 AM
I have come to the conclusion that Hula is the default face used when no facial data is present (as is the case with Grim), or if she's not, she's very close. See this thread at variousimmers.net for an explanation.
One of those Maxoids
#22 Old 20th Jun 2005 at 5:54 PM
Most of the unique NPCs do not have unique DNA. The DNA you see is fallback DNA created for them when the game/system asks for it. Some of it is random, so that is why it is not consistent with what you expect. As many of you know, normal sim DNA is stored in the neighborhood file. Unique NPCs are stored in objects.package and their neighbor records are created in every neighborhood when needed--the same is true for their DNA.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#23 Old 20th Jun 2005 at 7:23 PM
Thanks, MaxoidTom. That's about what I had gathered to this point, but it's nice to hear an offical word on it. Do you know if I am correct that Hula is the default face used when facial structure data is missing? (e.g. when breeding a sim with the Grim Reaper)
One of those Maxoids
#24 Old 21st Jun 2005 at 5:10 PM
If any of the parents are missing facial data, the child will have the default face, since two faces are required to do any blending operations. I'm not sure about Hula, but I'm pretty sure the Grim Reaper doesn't have facial data.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#25 Old 21st Jun 2005 at 6:18 PM
Oh - so if one parent has a face, and the other does not, the child gets the default face? Or does the one parent's face get blended with the default face to produce the child? Is the default face just used whenever a face is needed but absent?

I was orginally just asking if Hula was the default face. The reason I suspect that she is, is because there are only three facial data entries in objects.package - hers, the therapist and Pollination Technician (neither Grim nor the RC car have face data.) Obviously, neither the therapist nor polli tech are the default. Also, breeding a completely faceless sim with itself produces a face in the child very similar to Hula. If she's not the default face - where does it come from?

(I suppose it would be sorta anti-climatic at this point to find out the default face is just the first one in the list when you're making a sim in CAS).
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